Are you a woodworking gearhead or geek? When I think of those terms, the image of the “tool collector” comes to mind. You know the one. The guy who has every tool in the world and knows every minute detail about the motor and how one tool brand compares to another. Their shop is spotless and in perfect order, simply because it never gets used. It seems a shameful waste of money, but everybody should be able to enjoy their hobby however they wish. And if putting a shop together and never using it is someone’s idea of fun, then so be it.
But recently, I became aware of other types of woodworking gearheads and geeks. How about the “sharpening nuts”? The folks who sharpen their blades up to 30000 grit. Or what about the “benchheads” (borrowing a term from my buddy Matt Vanderlist). These people rack their brains for months stressing over every detail and trying to predict all possible eventualities.
My knee-jerk reaction is, “Stop thinking so much and start making stuff people!”. It sort of puts me in a mindset similar to Tom’s Critical Review of the Schwarz’s Workbenches book. But if you really stop to think about it, we NEED these folks. I know I would NEVER take the time to dig back into archived writings and images to discover some minor detail of an 18th century workbench. I just don’t care that much. But thank goodness Chris Schwarz does (see the current issue of Popular Woodworking)! I will probably never stare at an old building long enough to discover its underlying secrets of proportions and even number ratios, but thank goodness George Walker does. Because they geek out on the subject and share their observations with their readers, I am able to read a short article and glean a few simple details and truths that will help me in the future.
And what about the “tool collectors”? Well even they play an important role. In this economy, every tool sold is on that helps keep my favorite companies in business. So keep buying my friends, buy like the wind!
I truly feel that we all have a place in this little woodworking ecosystem. Enjoy woodworking however you want. But if your ultimate goal is to build stuff, don’t get too bogged down in the details. Nothing wrong with geeking out, but don’t get in so deep that you can’t see the forest for the trees (unless you truly want the pursuit of those details to BE your hobby). Let other people do the hard work for you, and simply skim the good stuff that floats to the top.
27 Responses to “Woodworking Gearheads & Geeks”
Like you said Marc, we may not all be that way, but we need at least some of us to. we each have our unique talent that we bring to the table, and knowingly or unknowingly to us all, we share those talents and benefit from them all around.
I say – stop looking at other’s people’s plate in order to criticize it. instead – try to get something out of it, give back, and move on.
there’s no stopping the train… (see if you can state where that’s taken from :) maybe Nicole the leet would…;) )
Well said Marc.
I keep promising myself that I won’t buy another tool until I make something. But that router was just calling to me, and my birthday is coming up! I really really really plan to make some sawdust this summer.
I’m really glad for all of the people who are so into sharpening – as a beginning woodworker it’s really hard to figure out what’s wrong with used (or new) tools, and it’s really helped me being able to find out how to fettle and sharpen plane blades, knife blades, and chisels. I was really surprised at the amount of reading and actual sharpening I did before I could understand enough to make the tools work, and I can actually see how you could get really into it. I’ve been able to compare some hand tools with good sharpening and bad, and it’s pretty insane how much of a difference every extra bit of sharpening has made.
i geek out a little on hand planes i dig and read about planes made before LN LV and other such modern planes. Though i am a bit of a geek with anything i do. I have antique planes and it becomes an obsession lol. though my planes are getting work just i feel more complete knowing who made them where they came from etc.
Amen brothah! Preach on.
We need the hobbyists and professionals who have made each little area they concentrate on that much more accessible to those of us who either don’t have the time or loose our minds in sifting through the minutia they have not just a calling for, but a passion.
I do quite a bit of actual making of things, but in terms of where most of my effort is spent, I could be seen as a close relative of the tool collector: the wood collector. I like nothing better than getting a bunch of 8/4 lumber, resawing it, sanding it on my drum sander until it’s exactly 1/4″, organizing it by size with the rest of my wood, and admiring the grain pattern. Sometimes I resaw/sand it until it’s exactly 3/16″ or 1/8″ and cut it into inlay strips. I do use it eventually to make decorative boxes, but that’s almost a secondary matter ^_^
I think I probably fall into one of these categories. Not by choice though. Can’t help buying and selling tools. It’s a disease! For some reason the tools are much more interesting to me than the woodworking. Not that I’m against woodworking, it’s just my attention gets more time on the tools than the work. I beat myself up about it occasionally, but as you say, it’s just another angle o the hobby.
I see pro-woodworkers in the UK really giving the hobbyists a hard time for their collecting or obsessing. But when you’re not doing it for a living, you see it from a whole different perspective.
I play the banjo, and know a lot of banjo players who sell their banjos to buy new, more expensive banjos. They invest in new tone rings, try the latest new bridges, buy special gauges to “tune” their banjo heads, debate the influence of different neck woods on the quality of the sound, etc. And it’s clear that many of them believe that if they spend enough money and fiddle enough with their instrument, it will make them better banjo players. If they spent half that time and energy practicing–they probably would be.
I think a lot of woodworkers do the same thing with their tools. As if a $400 hand plane will enable them to create a truer surface than will a $20 second hand Stanley.
On the other hand, I would suspect that most of us do this for pleasure rather than for making money. And if the joy of spending gives one a better feeling than the joy of creating, and one can afford it, I say why not.
DD
I’m trying to get better.
Surely the guys that designed and built The Splinter super car would be woodworking gearheads. If you haven’t seen it yet, it is a woodworking masterpiece. Hit this link and take a tour.
http://www.joeharmondesign.com/
It would be interesting to know what triggered this post :)
I only have a problem when someone’s undeclared hobby (the sharpener, the pricey tool buyer, the plane fettler, etc.) thinks that their way is the only way. And like to insist on it. 1,000 ways to skin a cat and woodworking is just a series of cats…
Some people really bag on collectors… hey, fine tools are arguably as artsy and worthy of admiration as a lot of decor in your house. If that’s what they like, let them (or we’ll bring up your baseball card collection or matchbook collection).
I think the perceived anonymity of the Internet makes some people think they can just criticize everything, likely just to make themselves feel better.
Everybody just have fun with it.
Oh, while I’m here, I just want to say that I saw dust and chips in Vic’s shop the other day. There, I feel better. :-P
and I thought I could trust you with that, Paul…what a let down :o( I’m hurt.
Rumors like that will just kill your reputation Vic! :)
I KNOW, huh?! You just can’t trust anyone.
Your comments aren’t that great Paul. J/K, LOL, :).
Fact is, I wish I had a little more of every type of geek in me. I have a tendency to rush into projects without doing much research or planning ahead. My tools are notorious for being the farthest thing from sharp and I usually end up messing something up because I tried using a tool that wasn’t meant for the job when I could have easily purchased one that would worked.
Plus people that are passionate about something are generally cool to listen too. They have a way of “geekifing” others.
I believe I am an unhealthy combination of 90% of all of them. That’s probably why my head hurts so much all the time. :)
This article reminds me of a saying my dad had, every person has their place in this world just as every tool does.
I just have to find space to put all the tools away so I can finish a few projects. Refurbishing old tools, sharpening, building new tools and jigs, buying new tools, building things, l love it all. Cleaning up, not so much. The best part of the whole thing is the facinating people you meet in the process.
That is me right now. I have been buying few tools this year without building anything. My latest toy is the Rikon 10-325 band saw. I have been playing with it for 2 weeks, all I do is to slice few pieces of veneer (testing), adjusting, cleaning its table top, and stand back to see how shiny the table top is. No dust is allowed inside out of the band saw.
All I think for now is what I will buy next. I have to stop this madness somehow…Last year, I had way less tools and built tons of furniture.
Preach the good word.
That was a very interesting column. And very educational I can now move onto the legs of my table that’s 2 years in the making. You just got me over my detail phobia thank you very much.
How about the guy who has so many projects and jigs in mind that he doesn’t know where to begin?
That would be me.
I love buying new tools, I also love using them. how else are you going to master it?
Although recently I have been increasing the quality of tools that I buy, I still have a lot of cheap stuff. Through the years part of the challenge has been “How do I do this with what I have?” So I come with a jig here and a trick there and usually get the results that I’m looking for. I am wondering though, would air conditioning be considered a shop tool? Hey, it would make my work easier and more enjoyable.
I think about the “shop-heads.” A shop-head is one (like me sometimes) who might be very happy … just working on and tweaking his shop for the rest of his life. Maybe we all fall into this pattern at times, especially after complete shop overhaul projects. The temptation is to just keep fine-tuning the shop and refining various parts of the shop … especially storage.
I have just finished (mainly finished) a year-and-a-half total shop rebuild, retool and expansion. Even though I am basically done, I can see innumerable smaller projects that I could start in the shop to refine the storage of stuff.
I think that my solution might be that I will have two projects going at the same time. One project will be “actually building some furniture” while the second (and concurrent) project will be to do some further storage building and installation in the shop. One nice thing about building stuff for the shop is that it gives me a chance to practice some cabinetry skills that I had either, not tried before (like dovetails) or had not used in a while.